


Storytime

by blueinkedbones



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Kid Dean Winchester, One Shot, Play Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 02:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16904469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueinkedbones/pseuds/blueinkedbones
Summary: “Would you like to make up a story with me, Dean?”“OK,” Dean said, and sized the little dolls up. The baby was Sammy, he said almost immediately. The dark haired woman was Hannah. The small brown haired boy became Dean. The blonde woman was Mommy, he said, clinging to it. The dark haired man was Dad. The light haired man wasn’t in the story, Dean finished. He’s nobody.“Would you like to start the story?” Hannah asked, but she didn’t have to. He nodded, still gripping ‘Mommy’ doll tight. Mommy was putting Dean doll to bed. Sammy doll was already in bed, he said, putting the porcelain bundle in the cradle. Mommy was putting Dean doll to bed, and she said night prayers with him and tucked him in and read a story on a chair by his bed. Dean doll fell asleep. The doll’s eyes wouldn’t close, of course, so Dean lifted the thin scrap of fabric that was the blanket higher.“What happens next?” Hannah asked, but Dean said nothing. He fixed the blanket on the doll again, and the position of Mommy doll in the chair. Then he spoke.“Nothing happens next. That’s the end.”





	Storytime

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this fic in 2010, posted it to a few sites that no longer exist, and pretty much forgot about it until a few hours ago. i'd make a few minor edits, but if i started with that shit i'd probably never stop, so we'll just fade back to simpler times, when, for example, i thought supernatural was a good show that would eventually resolve itself in a happy ending, or, you know, any kind of ending at all.
> 
> (i know, i'm one to talk...)

The file on her desk read ‘Dean Winchester, age six’ and held two pages of teachers’ worries. Dean was too quiet, too withdrawn, too obedient, too unhappy. Consistently. Too perfect, actually, so he had gotten bypassed, at first, by kids with more apparent issues: the screamers, the biters, the ones who never stopped crying from the moment they were dropped off by their parents to the moment they were picked up again. Pay no attention to Dean, and he makes no trouble; but one day the two teachers and two teacher’s aides realized he wasn’t doing anything. When told to do something he would, with no fuss or argument; but come a time like free play, where the kids got to be their wild, childish, one hundred percent free selves, he did nothing.

In general, Dean was a gem. Serious, capable, mature. At sixteen, those traits alone would make him any teacher’s favorite. But Dean was six. Such maturity wasn’t a compliment. Dean was just a kid, but he never seemed to let himself be just a kid. He walked like the weight of the world was strapped to his shoulders, and instead of throwing it off and running to play with his friends, he faced it head-on, refusing to back down. With any other kid, such statements would be utterly ridiculous, but once Kylie, the morning teacher’s aide (blonde, perky, a gum snapper with a sharp tongue) said it, the others had to agree. It was at once so frightening, they trooped off to the principal, Mr. C. Lester, and piled their worries one by one.

Principal Lester wasn’t a bad guy, but he had a tendency not to take things like this seriously. At most, he’d get the kid a consultation with the school’s shrink. She’d pony up something like ‘pent up trauma over the death of his goldfish, Goldie’ and the kid would get an ice cream and extra smiles for a day and forget about his goldfish forever. I mean, come on. He’s six. Worries may seem big at six, but how bad could it be? So he’s a good kid. Where’s the problem? At worst he’s having an off day…

But the amassed staff was adamant. There was something wrong, something big, something awful, the poor kid was suffering, Charles! 

So Principal Lester agreed to take some time out of his day to observe Dean for himself. The teachers nodded, relieved that something would be done, and went back to class. Principal Lester sat back in his leather swivel chair, resisted the common urge to rest his heels on his desk, and thought back to the biggest trial of his childhood. Dean’s case was nothing like that, of course. The remaining family or guardian would have notified the school. You don’t forget to mention something like that.

Come to think of it, though, he’d never seen or heard of Dean’s mother, and Dean’s father hadn’t dwelled much past registration. Any allergies we should know about? No. Any illnesses that require constant attention, like diabetes? No. Anything else we should know about your child? No. Is that all, Mister. Well. Yes, I guess it is. He’d been gruff and abrupt, but not rude enough to warrant worry, so Principal Lester hadn’t given it much thought. And still, the possibility of something large and frightening having gone on undetected in his school was nearly preposterous. It was a goldfish, or some equally trivial issue, surely.

Still, no reason to put things off. The calendar above his desk showed he was free for the next half hour, and that was more than enough time to cheer up the kid, assuage the women’s fears, and maybe even have a coffee if his assistant ever came back to the land of competency. Principal Lester stood, looked at his watch, and left for Dean’s class.

An hour later, he was on the phone with his sister, Hannah Lester, a well-known psychotherapist, cursing his optimism. After a fair amount of small talk, Dean Winchester had an appointment, and Hannah would be coming to visit the boy in school.

What was wrong, Principal Lester couldn’t say. But something definitely was, and who better than his notoriously successful sister to ferret it out?   

He set her up in an empty classroom, Dean’s file on the desk, and wished her luck. Lis, the afternoon assistant, (dark hair, warm eyes, an evident love for children that was strangely attractive, er, that is, she was clearly the best person to handle this, nothing more, and Principle Lester, you can call me Charl- I mean, Principal Lester, was very impressed by her. That’s all.) brought Dean over, explaining that he wasn’t in trouble, there was just a very nice lady who wanted to meet him, okay?

‘No’ not being a part of Dean’s vocabulary, he looked up, nodded, and said, “OK."

And so Hannah Lester looked up from the file on her desk to greet Dean for the first time.

He was a small boy, bowlegged and freckled, and his eyes were downcast, but as he faced her, he looked up, and Hannah nearly forgot to breathe. Dean’s eyes were almost frightening in their maturity. While nothing was physically old about the green-ringed black orbs, he seemed to exude worry, tragedy, some horrible emotional weight. Hannah didn’t know how it could be possible; the rest of Dean’s face said nothing at all. But his eyes were- they were devoid of innocence, that’s what it was. And every child should have innocence, that bright, shining optimism. Children should be children, and then they can grow up and be adults, in that order. This was hardly the first time Hannah had seen those eyes, but it was the first time she’d seen them on a six-year old kid. It was so horrific, she barely remembered to breathe, and still Dean looked her in the eyes as though he’d been commanded to, even as his face grew paler and paler and his freckles more prominent, and Hannah realized she hadn’t said a word.

This was a mistake, of course. Hannah finally looked up from Dean and saw Lis, who was eying her with some suspicion and nestling the back of Dean’s head with her palm. Dean, to his part, still stared straight ahead.

Hannah shook herself from her reverie and smiled at Dean. “Hey. My name is Hannah. What’s yours?”

“Dean,” he said. His voice surprised her, too. She’d expected a whisper, a whimper even, after the welcome she’d given, something tender and afraid, but he spoke simply, seriously. It was as though he was an exceptionally short adult.

“That’s a nice name. Dean. I like that name. What’s your last name, Dean?”

At this, Dean’s eyes began to swivel from side to side, as though the answer was hidden somewhere in this empty classroom, and he only had to find it. He looked cornered, shaky, but still he met her eyes and said quietly…

“I don’t know.”

This was strange to Hannah, and, judging by Lis’s face, her as well. A six year old not knowing his own last name?  “Is it Winchester?” she coaxed, and Dean relaxed.

“Yeah… yeah, it’s Winchester.”

Time to move on, Hannah thought. Lis seemed to think so too. “Im going back to class now, okay?” she told Dean. “Be good.” 

A look at Dean showed the last sentence proved redundant. Lis came closer to Hannah and looked her in the eye. “Help him, please,” she whispered, and Hannah nodded, though a bit numbly; she suddenly felt strangely under-qualified. Lis departed with one last concerned look, closing the door behind her. And then it was just Hannah and Dean.

“Would you like to play a game with me?” Hannah said. She’d never been this nervous with any patient, ever. It wasn’t that Dean was threatening- the opposite, actually. Dean was resilient, sure, but he was also a child, and children are delicate things, and one push in the wrong direction could be catastrophic. Dean, in particular, made her think of a jumble of thread. It was her job to untangle it without tearing any of the tiny, delicate wisps of fabric. She didn’t know if she could do it. But enough of imagery and personal fear. She lifted a small two-story dollhouse from her bag and placed it on the desk. A bag of small plastic figures followed it. “Would you like to make up a story with me, Dean?”

“OK,” Dean said. Hannah sat at the desk and picked a few figures from the bag. A small dark haired boy, a tiny porcelain baby, a blonde woman, a dark haired woman, and two men, one light haired, one dark. “Would you like to name them, Dean?”

“OK,” Dean said again, and sized them up. The baby was Sammy, he said almost immediately. The dark haired woman was Hannah. He was naming them after real people, Hannah realized. The small brown haired boy became Dean. The blonde woman was Mommy, he said, clinging to it. The dark haired man was Dad. The light haired man wasn’t in the story, Dean finished. He’s nobody. 

“Would you like to start the story?” Hannah asked, but she didn’t have to. He nodded, still gripping ‘Mommy’ doll tight. Mommy was putting Dean doll to bed. Sammy doll was already in bed, he said, putting the porcelain bundle in the cradle. Mommy was putting Dean doll to bed, and she said night prayers with him and tucked him in and read a story on a chair by his bed. Dean doll fell asleep. The doll’s eyes wouldn’t close, of course, so Dean lifted the thin scrap of fabric that was the blanket higher.

“What happens next?” Hannah asked, but Dean said nothing. He fixed the blanket on the doll again, and the position of Mommy doll in the chair. Then he spoke.

“Nothing happens next. That’s the end.”

Normally, this would have been enough for Hannah, but she had a sudden abrupt feeling when Dean fell silent again. Something inside her said it didn’t end there. Dean was lying.

“Are you sure?” she prodded Dean, and he didn’t move. Didn’t say a word. Then he grabbed Mommy doll back again.

“Then Dean doll woke up and he said theres a monster don’t go away-”

“A monster in Dean doll’s bedroom?” Hannah asked.

“No,” Dean said. “In Sammy’s room. Dean says there’s a monster in Sammy’s room don’t go there ok and Mommy says ok and she stays in Dean’s room the end.” 

“Are you sure that’s the end?” Hannah asked again. “What about Sammy?”

Dean shivered slightly.

“The monster doesn’t want Sammy,” he said very fast. “The monster goes away.”

“The monster only wants Mommy,” Hannah clarified. Dean nodded. “So why didn’t the monster go to Mommy’s room?”

Dean’s eyes widened. “That’s not what happened,” he said quickly.

“What happened?” Hannah asked.

“Dean woke up and he said stay here Mommy ok? And she said ok. And then Dean went to Sammy’s room and got Sammy and brought him back to Mommy and she was ok and Sammy was ok the end.”

“Wow,” Hannah said. “Dean must be very brave. How did Dean get past the monster?”

Dean was silent for a long time. “The monster didn’t want Dean. Only Sammy. That’s why Daddy said look after Sammy ok don’t let anything happen to him so Dean looked after Sammy and everyone was ok.”

Hannah nodded. “You mentioned Daddy,” she said. “Where was he?”

“He was in Mommy and Daddy’s room,” Dean said. “He was asleep but in the morning he said Good job Dean but he didn’t believe about the monster and everybody was ok the end.”

“And the monster never came back?”

“No. Dean got the monster away and the monster went away and he never ever came back.”

“Good for Dean!” Hannah enthused. “Why did the monster want Sammy?”

Dean was still holding the Mommy doll, stroking her hair. “He didn’t get Sammy. Sammy’s ok.”

“That’s right. Dean’s a hero,” Hannah said.

Dean trembled. “No,” he said. “No.”

Hannah waited.

“That’s not what happened,” Dean said.

Hannah waited some more.

“Dean fell asleep. And then he woke up because Mommy was  _screaming_ …” his face twisted and he shook his head but didn’t stop. “Dean heard her screaming and he got out of bed and she was in Sammy’s room and Daddy was there and he had Sammy and Sammy was crying and Mommy was screaming and it smelled really bad and the room was blurry and the monster had Mommy and it didn’t let her go and Dean didn’t do anything and Daddy gave Dean Sammy and he said Take your brother outside as fast as you can don’t look back now Dean go and Dean took Sammy and he didn’t look back until he was outside and the monster was still there and Mommy was still there and she was still screaming and Daddy came out and he was crying and Sammy was crying and Mommy wasn’t with him and she wasn’t screaming anymore…” he swallowed hard and then he was closing his eyes and tears were spilling from behind his eyelids. Hannah was close to tears herself, her heart caught in her throat, constricting tightly and painfully. She wanted to help him, she had to help him, but how does one go about healing a wound this big?

“Dean’s still the hero,” she said softly. “Dean got Sammy out, and Sammy was okay, wasn’t he?”

“Mommy wasn’t ok,” he said. “And Sammy kept on crying and crying.”

“But Sammy’s okay, isn’t he,” Hannah said. She didn’t dare make it a question. “Sammy’s okay now, and its all because of Dean.”

Dean looked at her.

“Sammy’s so lucky to have a brother who loves him so much. Dean’s so brave. I don’t know if I could have-” Hannah broke off. Stick to characters, distance yourself, she chastised herself. “This is Charlie,” she said, picking a little blonde boy out of her bag of figures. “Charlie once heard his mommy screaming, but he didn’t get out of bed.”

“But his mommy was screaming,” Dean said.

“Yes.”

“And he’s s’posed to get Sammy out. How’d his Sammy get out?”

“Firemen came, and they helped.”

“He’s s’posed to look after Sammy.”

“He was scared.”

“Doesn’ matter if he’s scared. ‘s his job.”

“It’s not his job, Dean. Charlie was only a little boy.” A little twelve year old boy who knew better than to blame himself, Hannah thought. Poor Dean, at six, wasn’t that lucky. “He was scared and he didn’t know what to do so he stayed in bed.” Hid under it, actually. “And that’s okay. Dean was very brave to save Sammy, but what Charlie did was okay too.”

“Did Charlie’s mommy get out ok?” Dean asked. Hannah was quiet for a moment. Then she shook her head.

“No,” she said. “But that’s okay. Charlie’s daddy told Charlie to run, and he ran, and Charlie’s dad never came out either. But none of that was Charlie’s fault. The firemen told Charlie that if he’d stayed behind, he wouldn’t have got out okay either. It wasn’t his fault.”

Dean shook his head.

“What about Charlie’s Sammy?”

“The firemen got her. She was okay. Charlie and Sammy went to live with a nice fireman and they lived happily ever after.”

Dean looked horrified.

“Happily ever after?” he said. “But Mommy wasn’t ok, and Daddy wasn’t ok-”

“And that made Charlie and Sammy very sad, for a while. But Charlie knew it wasn’t his fault. And even though Charlie missed his mommy and daddy very much, he realized they would have wanted him to be happy. So Charlie tried his best to be happy, and soon he was. Happily ever after.”

Dean sat and thought about this for a while. It was already ten minutes past when the session should have ended, but Hannah made exceptions when it was absolutely necessary, and this was absolutely necessary.

“Dean was so brave,” she said. “I bet that made his mommy very proud. Dean’s mommy is up in heaven, looking down on him, and she must be very happy about that. But Dean, something is making Mommy so sad, up in heaven. Do you know what that is?”

Dean looked down. “Dean couldn’t save her,” he whispered, trembling.

Hannah closed her eyes against the tears welling up, opened them, and said, “No. Mommy’s in heaven, and she’s very happy-”

“Happy to be away from Dean,” Dean said. Hannah swallowed hard and wiped her eyes before responding. “No, no. Happy because Heaven is a beautiful, nice place. But she’s sad because she’s looking down and watching Dean, who she loves so much, and he’s so sad, and that makes her sad. She wishes Dean could be happy, and she wants Dean to know that she’s so proud of him for being so brave, and she just wants Dean to be happy. That’s what she’s telling Hannah,” Hannah said, picking up the brown haired doll. “Can you do that? Can you be happy for Mommy?”

“OK,” Dean whispered, fisting his eyes.

“Mommy’s so proud of you, Dean," Hannah said softly. “You’re her little angel.”

She hadn’t meant to say that last sentence. In her opinion, it was overkill. But something made her say it anyway, and she was glad, because something changed in Dean’s face then. He didn’t quite break into a smile and run off laughing, carefree and hopeful again, but something lit in those bright green eyes, some fiery determination Hannah could not explain properly in words.

“Its time for dismissal, now,” Hannah said. “It was nice meeting you, Dean.”

“You too,” Dean said, and even his voice had changed. It was- lighter, somehow. The heavy burden he’d been carrying had been replaced by some huge energy. Hannah’s heart constricted. There was more, she knew, things they hadn’t even breached now, but it was enough for today.

Later she’d go and hug her brother tightly, offering no explanation at all, but right now she watched Dean turn a corner and leave her line of vision. Through blurry eyes, she almost swore she saw a beautiful blonde woman approach her and thank her in a soft voice. Then she wiped her eyes and looked again. It was Lis, her hair as black as it ever had been, her eyes not blue, but a warm dark brown.

“Thank you,” Lis said again, and Hannah nodded. In a blink, she was gone too. Hannah rubbed her eyes, sure she was losing it, and shook her head.

It had been a long day, and she clearly needed a bed. And then, when she was no longer hallucinating, she was going to have a coffee with her favorite brother, Charlie.

the end. 


End file.
